Monrovia — "That is still a tall order," Michael Titoe says with a chuckle as he contemplates Liberia launching its own brand name chocolate. A fellow of the World Cocoa Foundation and director of coordination at the Liberian Ministry of Agriculture, Titoe knows that Liberia is a long way from being a significant player like neighbours Ghana and Côte d'Ivoire.
"It's expensive to establish a chocolate factory," Titoe acknowledged. "When you go to lobby for a company to come to Liberia, you're not going to get anyone to come when your production is less than 30,000 metric tonnes. You can't do that." According to official figures, Liberia exported 9,530 tonnes during the 2010-11 season. Ghana has long set its sights on meeting an annual production target of one million tonnes.
From his ministry base, Titoe heads a technical working group on cocoa, bringing together key actors for monthly meetings, trying to plot a course for an expanding, but still learning industry. He is not alone in talking confidently of a slow but effective turnaround.
"We have seen incredible developments in our time here," says Robin Wheeler, who heads the Liberia program for the U.S.-based non-profit ACDI/VOCA, and is now steering its Livelihood Improvement for Farming Enterprises (Life) program, targeting smallholders. Wheeler pointed out that some regions of Liberia are blessed with conditions that "are literally perfect for tree crops".
Cocoa has been grown in Liberia since at least the early 1900s. Although it has become the second export crop after rubber, the dividends for both smallholder producers and the national treasury have been modest. The 14-year civil had a devastating impact. Production was heavily disrupted, with thousands of farmers forced off their land. Already underperforming state structures became even weaker, with the agriculture ministry starved of funds. Liberia's Central Agricultural Research Institute (Cari), a crucial base for shared knowledge and training, was wrecked, taken over by different armed factions and systematically looted.
Taking stock of Liberia's agricultural prospects after the war, the government identified the rehabilitation of tree crops as a key priority, along with the recapitalization of smallholders.
Cocoa farmers, often working in isolated areas and dependent upon a fragile road network, still faced massive difficulties. Trees were aging fast and proving less and less productive. The crop was extremely vulnerable to black pod rot and other pests. There were serious shortages of planting equipment and seed varieties. Access to credit was extremely limited, particularly after the collapse of the Agricultural Cooperative Development Bank (ACDP). Deprived of information on prices, farmers had little bargaining power when dealing with middlemen, selling at way below normal prices. Cooperative structures were weak and discredited. Storage facilities were dire. Many smallholders were ready to switch to rice, seeing little incentive to carry on with cocoa. Much of the cocoa produced in border areas made its way to Guinea and Sierra Leone, where farmers felt they could get a more reliable return for their produce.
Michael Titoe said getting farmers a decent price for their produce had been an obvious priority for the agriculture ministry and partners like ACDI/VOCA and the International Institute of Tropical Agriculture (IITA). That meant putting pressure on cocoa exporters and giving farmers an indicative, or reference price model, to strengthen their hand in negotiations. There was a widespread ignorance of prices, which the authorities have tried to address. "Poor communications means some farmers get information, others don't," Titoe conceded, but it looks that the time when middlemen could expect to pay as little as 50 U.S. cents a kilo are disappearing.
According to Wheeler, there are now at least 30,000 cocoa smallholders in Liberia and ACDI/VOCA is working with 10,600 of them. Many farmers are now involved in an expanding network of 'farmers' associations', which Wheeler says have a more genuine collective approach than the cooperatives of old, which suffered from the control of vested interests and heavily centralized structures. They did not allow farmers a proper voice. Crucially, the new farmers' associations have won the right to negotiate directly with exporters, by-passing what Wheeler described as "a plethora of intermediaries".
Farmers are getting more money in their pocket, according to Say G. Zawolo, business manager for the 550-strong Tarpeleseh Farmers' Association, based in Saclepea in the northeast. "Our lives are gradually improving," said Zawolo, speaking by phone from Saclepea. "Some of our children are going from public school to private school. Some families are moving from zinc houses to houses made with bricks and cement."
For Titoe, improvements in marketing and organization are crucial, but the quality of the crop itself is vital. "Once the quality is improved, you get better prices for the cocoa and the farmers are better off," he said, pointing out that the low-grade cocoa Liberia exported was subject to damaging levies.
Wheeler is confident that Liberian cocoa is getting up to scratch, citing a number of schemes, projects and inputs that have worked for smallholders: strongly targeted training programmes, focusing on areas such as processing, fermentation and harvesting; an investment in nurseries; giving farmers' access to solar driers and improved warehouse house facilities. Wheeler and Titoe both stressed the importance of introducing new seed varieties from Ghana and Côte d'Ivoire, a sometimes tortuous process.
For Wheeler, top-of-the-range cocoa is already coming out of Liberia, with a farmers' association in Kolahun, Lofa County, confounding the skeptics by producing Grade One cocoa, drawing the interest of the U.S.-based Transmar Commodity Group. Traditionally confined to three main counties, Bong, Nimba and Lofa, cocoa production has now extended to Gbarpolu in the northwest and is picking up in Grand Gedeh in the far east. The International Fund for Agricultural Development recently announced a U.S.$24.9-million loan to Liberia to revitalize cocoa and coffee production.
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There are obvious caveats. Cocoa experts point out that a major, well-funded replanting process is required. There are warnings from within the sector that the government's rhetoric on agricultural transformation ignores a lack of capacity throughout the cocoa system. There are complaints that a dependency culture evident in other areas of public life in Liberia is still too evident in farming, with farmers needing to show more initiative.
Rural poverty remains a huge problem in Liberia. "The farmers are living day to day," a Monrovia-based cocoa expert pointed out, noting that the realities of providing for families and paying school fees meant quick profits were crucial, even if it meant rushing the production process and selling substandard cocoa to whoever was available. Titoe talked ruefully of a cosmetic factory using low-quality cocoa provided by farmers desperately needing the revenue. "That is really undermining our cocoa industry," he said.
